Tag Archives: passion

Oh, so it’s gonna be one of those: A slowly crawling, rainy day best spent under the covers, with a book, after a rare discovery that today, you have absolutely nowhere to be.

You’ve gotta earn a day like that. There is always too much work; work that often works you — not the other way around. The work of Gotta. The work of Must. The work that should not be rescheduled: It could be delayed — but it’s gonna cost cha. So, it’s always best to deal with the work now, for it might go away if you don’t. People have choices, around here. They might take their business elsewhere. So, you say yes — and take the work.

I wish I knew it to be different, somewhere else in the world. But I didn’t start working until I landed here: In the Land of Work. Some call it “Opportunity”. Sure, it is. The possibility of that opportunity tests the desire and sometimes pushes the limits of your capability. But If you seize the opportunity, it becomes: More work. The work of Should. The work of Must.

Perhaps, it’s more desirable work — work you wouldn’t mind doing for free. Ask any artist: an undercover poet or the girl musician with purple hair that works in the front of your office as a receptionist (but mostly, she makes your coffee and keep unjamming the copy machine). Ask a cashier at a framing store or the teenager with dreamy eyes that bags your groceries at Trader Joe’s. Ask anyone from the army of these tired kids working night shifts at your restaurants: They know the drudgery of free work all to well.

Some may still have enough gratitude to go around. If fuels them to keep showing up after a day spent chasing the work. There is enough passion in them still — to find the reasons to peel on their hideous uniforms every day, right around three or four, when most people start watching the clock for the minute to call it quits. But the tired kids report to work in which they rarely believe — but which they absolutely must accept until another “opportunity”, for work.

I know one. I study her bounce around the narrow sushi joint I frequent weekly. Every night, and sometimes during the weekend brunch, I can see her doing the work.

(Ugh, “brunch”! If you’ve ever waited tables in Manhattan, for the rest of your life, there is no more dreaded word in your vocabulary. It’s enough to lose your appetite for “brunches”.)

She’s got a regular name. It’s sorta pretty, but I always forget it, and I want to call her Clementine, or Chloe, or Josephine. She is perky, quick and funny, always ready for some improv with a willing customer. When she appears at a booth, she tends to find a nook into which she fits her soft places like a kitten agreeing to your caress. But you better know how to touch her: A slight degree of nervousness or clumsy inexperience — and she bounces off, while waiving the tail of her gathered hair as a woman used to being watched every time she walks away.

“You want — the salads? Is that safe to say?”

I know for certain that just a register away, therein lies her bitchiness. She is too tired from the work to tippy toe around me, for her tips. And I bet she can tear into a man with eloquence and composure even grown women don’t have the courage to possess . But she is always nice to me, at first; until she remembers my routine — and she begins to flirt.

“Are you an actress?” I hear the booth filled with older men ask her.

They look like they work in production: There is a certain air of exhaustion, long hours, terrible diet and lack of exercise that I can smell on them. There is always too much work, for these guys; so much of it, most end up childless or divorced. They are this city’s doctors: Always on call. Always ready to take the work. Because if they don’t, the work might go away. So, they say yes.

Clementine says yes. But she shifts, from one foot to another. The lines of her curves change in a warning that she may let ‘em have it, in case of their commentary about the work she doesn’t mind doing for free. But thankfully, the men know better than to ask her the civilian cliches of: “How is that going for you?” or “Have I seen you in anything?”

They do know better; for they have sacrificed their forming years on putting in the union hours — sometimes, for free — in a dangerous bet that the work would pay off later.

But the work may not have happened later. The “opportunity” had to be seized right then. So: They said yes.

Now, newly and happily married, or unhappily divorced, they still find themselves chasing the work. And in the midst of their private miseries, they chase the fantasy of Chloe’s possibility. Like me, they find her youth titillating. But it is her fire — that formed in her pursuit of the work — that makes them hope she would stay by their table just a little bit longer.

But Josephine must go: She must go do the work. She has to earn herself the “opportunity” to do her other work, for free. And she has to work enough to earn herself one of these:

A slow, crawling, rainy day best spent under the covers, in a tired body, with a book; after a rare discovery that today, she has absolutely nowhere to be, and that her conscience is finally at rest — from all the work.

Nothing, as in: I wake up late due to the afternoon sun blazing through my window. (The shades are helpless against this blazing.) I wake up to sunlight, and not to the monotonous tune of my alarm clock. I wake up to another day. (I’m helpless against waking.)

And when I do wake up, I stay in bed, despite the habitual bounce of my thoughts about the stuff that needs to get done. It’ll get done. Eventually. So, I stay in bed, reading.

The more fragmented my schedule, the lesser are the chances of my reading a book, these days. A whole book: Not a book of vignettes by a Parisian melancholic, or of poetry by an angry American alcoholic. A book, a long novel, or an epic story hasn’t rested in my palms in a long time. I still read though — but of course! — in between the fragments of my day. But I never read in bed.

But today: I do. Because I’m doing — nothing.

Yes, I’m doing nothing:

Nothing, as in: I take a scorching hot shower with a bar of handmade soap with tea tree oil and oats. It smells like the pine tree bathhouses that my people would heat up for each other, late at night — before a generous dinner but after the hard work — and they would come out with red and calm faces of innocence, long ago traded in for survival.

I take the first sip of my black coffee: I’m feeling peckish, I must say. I haven’t eaten the first meal of the day, and I’m about to skip the second. But there is no way I’m cooking today: Because I’m doing — nothing.

Nothing, as in: I walk to the farmers’ market. I do not drive. Instead, I accompany my kind man who tells me the fables from his previous day. His long stories. As we walk, we study the neighborhood: The homes that sit at an architectural intersection of San Francisco and Venice Beach. Homes with abandoned toys in their play pins and enviable tree houses decorated with Chinese lanterns. Homes with old vintage cars in their gravel covered driveways and disarrayed trash bins at the curb. Homes I’ve promised to build for my people — my kind people — and my child.

I watch an older couple approaching us: I wonder what I would look like, when I’m older. And I shall be older, certainly. The romantic notion that I would die young has expired with forgiveness.

And now: I want to live, in perseverance and stubborn generosity; and every day, I want to start with a clean slate on the board of my compassion.

What time is it? I have no clue. I do not own a watch and my cellphone has been off since the very early hours of this morning, when I was just getting to be bed after a night of seeing old friends and playing cards until we began to feel drunk from exhaustion.

I think of them — my friends, my kind people, my kind man — as I walk, and I can see the white tents the hippies and the hopefuls have pitched behind a plastic barricade. They’re all so specific, I get inspired to see them in a book:A long novel about perseverance and stubborn generosity; an epic story in which its heroine travels toward her forgiveness.

“When you forgive — you love.”

Someone else has written that in a romantic story about dying young. I don’t want to do that: I want to live.

Yes, I want to live.

We purchase things that only speak to our taste buds: Black grapes and persimmons. Sun-dried tomato pesto and horseradish hummus. Sweet white corn and purple peppers. I watch a tiny curly creature with my baby-fat face and a unibrow dancing around her mother’s bicycle, in a pink tutu and leopard uggs. I look away when she tickles my eyes with tears only to find a brown face, even tinier, resting over a sari-draped shoulder of her East Indian mother. Live, my darling child. I want you — to live.

My kind comrade and I walk over to the handmade soap store: I want more smells of home. We both notice her: She is African and tall — PROUD — with dreadlocks and a pair of bohemian overalls. How could you not notice her: Her face belongs to a heroine traveling toward her own forgiveness.

“Are you doing okay?” a very gentle gentleman asks us from behind the counter.

I smile into the jar of eucalyptus body butter and nod: Zen.

“How could they not be okay, here?” the heroine making a rest stop on her journey toward forgiveness says.

We laugh. All four faces in this store are calm. They are calm with innocence long traded-in for survival. But then again, maybe it’s just compassion. (And I’m helpless — against it.)

“I was riding my motorcycle this morning,” my proud heroine starts telling us a fable from her previous day. Her long story.

At the end of it, we would laugh. Not wanting anything from each other, but having so much to give back, we laugh with lightness.

We laugh — with nothingness, in a Kundera sorta way.

I think: We are no longer innocent. But that’s quite alright, I think.

Because with enough forgiveness, compassion often takes its place. Compassion takes the place of innocence. And that’s quite alright, I think. And I want to live — a life of that.

“Rrra-Rrra!” the younger one always winds up his tongue; and he gleams while shaking the long hair out of his squinting dark eyes. “RRA-RRA – BABY!”

I chuckle: How I adore those hearts!

This morning, I listen to the message, and I slide open the windows. It’s been feeling like autumn, lately. But how exactly — I just can’t pinpoint yet.

Perhaps, there is a vague aroma of dying leaves, much more aggressive on the other coast, where my older brother now dwells. He is making things happen over there, moving at twice the speed than we do, in this paralyzed city. And his energy — his hunger, his passion, his perpetual up-for-it-ness — is contagious, even if only captured on my voicemail, this morning.

All throughout the year, he is in the habit of wearing long, tattered scarves, a couple at a time. A few — seem to be made out of his own canvases. Others are thicker: I imagine they’ve been crocheted by the hands of lovely girls who tend to adore him, with their open, yet calmer hearts. And when I meet him, in the middle of autumn, on the other coast, I study the flushed tip of his nose peaking out of the bundle of those endless scarves — which he is in the habit of wearing, all throughout the year, a couple at a time.

“Ra-Ra!” he’d say, while untangling himself.

And I would chuckle: How I adore that heart!

It’s not going to rain here, not for another month. So, my own scarves, long and tattered, can remain stored for just a bit longer.

Still, I can already smell the oncoming change. It sits at the bottom of a clouded layer that now takes longer to burn off in the mornings. At night, I’ve started using thicker blankets. And when I leave my day job, these days, the sun is already on its way out. I walk home, alone in this paralyzed city, and I bundle up in my oversized sweaters whose sleeves remind me of the long arms of my brothers. I bury my face in the generous, knit, tattered collars, and I chuckle.

My brothers: They stand over a foot taller than me. My baby-talls! My two gorgeous, loyal creatures from two foreign lands with convoluted histories of political detours, similar to my own Motha’land’s. We each belong to the people prone to chaos, to revolutions and idealism. So, our comfort level — is flexible.

Moving — or moving on — comes easier for us. Neither one has settled yet (and we won’t settle for less than the entire world!); and we tend to keep our luggages readily available at the front of our closets.

My younger brother tends to get easily distracted. On every adventure, every journey, he loses himself completely, disappearing for months at a time, on the other coast. But every time he resurfaces, his energy, his passion — his perpetual up-for-it-ness — is absolutely contagious.

He takes weeks to return my messages. And when he does:

“RRA-RRA – BABY!” he winds up his tongue, and I can hear his gleaming while shaking the long hair out of his squinting dark eyes.

And I chuckle, instantaneously forgiving him for disappearing on the other coast: How I adore that heart!

This morning, I slide open the windows: It’s been feeling like autumn, lately. I pull the luggage out of the front of my closet and I begin packing.

“How ’bout an adventure?” I think. “Why not?”

And immediately, I am flooded with a certain feeling of lightness and peace. But what it is exactly — I just can’t pinpoint yet. Where I am going — I do not know. It’s always been easy to move. But lately, it’s become easier — to move on.

Fuck it, I think, and I go digging out my long, tattered scarves. A couple of them seem to be made out of my brother’s canvases. I don’t remember where I got them though; and I rarely wear them. So, I pack those away again. The others, thicker and multicolored, crocheted by lovely girls with open, calmer hearts — those I start trying on, as if with their length, I can measure the mileage to my beloved hearts. One at a time, I wrap them around my neck, bury my face and I chuckle: In my life, I have adored so many hearts! And so many hearts — adore me.

It’s not going to rain here, not for another month. So, maybe, today, I’ll just drive up north: Somewhere else to tangle myself up — up to my flushed nose — and to think of my brothers; to think of all the other hearts, dwelling on the other coast.

In less than an hour, my luggage is packed. I’m ready to go; and immediately, I am flooded with a certain feeling of lightness and peace. Is it gratitude? My adoration for other hearts?

I listen to my brother’s message again:

“Hey, Ra-Ra!” (he left it, months ago, for the nth time.) “Don’t you think it’s kinda ironic that after six years, your outgoing message hasn’t changed?”

Because for the last six years, I’ve lived vicariously through my brothers’ energies: their adventures, passions — their perpetual up-for-it-ness — on the other coast. My own travels, however, have been carefully planned.

I reach for my phone and prerecord another message. I think I may use it, in my seventh year:

She was brown, in a silky slip of raw salmon pink; and when she walked, the wind played peekaboo from underneath her skirt. The hair was down, relaxed in that magical way that made it soft, but with some mighty heft: One could easily bury a hand in it, or an entire limb; or tangle up a heart.

On her feet, she wore a pair of sandals borrowed from some Amazon warrior, which buckled all the way up to her magnificent mid-calf. The muscles trapped under all those belts and copper buckles moved and flexed; and at any moment, she could’ve shaken off the dainty shopping bags from her shoulder blade — and start leaping: to save a child or to defeat a monster.

“God damn!” I muttered to my partner.

But he was already on the same page: squeezing my bicep and smiling the grin of a six-year-old who has just discovered he liked girls — most definitely! He waited for the creature to get another meter ahead of us, stared at the ground — out of his respect for me and for my brown dream girl — and he quietly said:

“I know.”

Immediately, I thought of that ugly, old dog I have been honing to become my muse, in moments of my literal dry spell:

“but why do they do that?

why do they look like that?

why do they let the wind do

that?”

Bukowski, Hank:

Always in love with some magical bird’s legs, treating every infatuation like a temple in which to worship a departed lover.

Just as I do.

Amen!

But then again, that’s all it took: a flight of one magical bird, in a silky slip of raw salmon pink — and my hunger was resurrected.

I felt the urge to play again, to worship, to want. To dream. To love.

And the literal dry spell — was over.

Another one sat sideways on a tiled step of a whirlpool, reading The New Yorker, folded in half, lengthwise. She barely looked at me when I slowly descended into the hot water.

Okay: There was one glance. But that’s all it took: a glance by one magical waterbird.

Then, she returned to reading, while all I could think was:

“Was there a smile?”

Because I swore there was. A small one. The one that I use myself to thank a man for his attention but to prevent any further advances. The pressed-lipped one. The smile-off. (You know the kind: It’s kind.)

She wore the tiniest bikini the color of the first summer tan. And in between flipping the pages, she would put the magazine aside and go under the swirling, hot water entirely. The silky hair of her Persian heritage would float above; and when she would come back up — it would cling to her long neck and the upper arms like second skin. Or like an oily film on the wings of some magical waterbird. She would read some more, do that thing again.

And when she slowly ascended out of the hot water, the hair continued on: sticking to her lower back and all along her toned, capable arms; and it would invade the boundaries of the tiniest bikini the color of the first summer tan.

“you don’t know how exciting life can get

around here

at 5:35 p.m.”

(Bukowski, Hank.)

The dry spell, how ever literal, was over.

Back home, on my phone, I’d find a message from a creature an ocean away. She was brown, caramel-brown, to be exact; and she had a library of hair styles, each more striking than the next. At times, she’d wear it down, relaxed in that magical way that made it soft but with some mighty heft: and every time, I would bury my entire heart in it. Other times, she would tame it with a scarf the color of dry grass on the veldt of her heritage. But my favorite was always the halo of tight curls, each perfected with some potion that only the brown girls know — and seemingly with a twirl of her long, pinky finger.

She would get inside my car and unleash her hair, filling the air with the aromas of coconut and that very magical potion that only the brown girls know — and with the perfume of her dreams.

“God damn!” I’d say and yank us into traffic.

And I would start speeding, as if we were a pair of Amazon warriors, about to leap out: to save a child or to defeat a monster. But really, my only excuse for speeding was to make her laugh, while shaking the halo of those tight curls in which I would bury my heart — for keepsakes.

“200 years ago they would have burned her

at the stake

now she puts on her

mascara as we

drive along.”

(Bukowski, Hank.)

Her message on my phone had come from the veldt of her heritage. She had flown home, after a break-up; and instead of healing herself in the arms of the next lover, she went off to help the others, more in need:

To save the children and to defeat the monsters.

“God damn!” I muttered, this time to myself, and I sat down to write.

Because that’s all it would take: a flight, a bird, a wing, or a kind heart.

“What are your fantasies?” a message came in last night, and it lullabied me with my waking dreams shortly before the other kind would take over.

I sorted through the collection in my mind, considered each dream, lifting it up against the nightlight; twirled it, until every stone sparkled with light; and I measured each one against my skin like a pair of long, mysterious, gypsy earrings.

I selected a few:

“Being naked on a beach in Greece. Ditto in Barcelona — but with a lover,” I responded.

There are so many places teasing me with their exotic promises. But mostly, I am interested in chasing just another variety of peace. I am not really after a particular slowness of time, but a serenity that comes with knowing that I have finally surrendered.

Surrendered to what?

To stubborn kindness no matter how difficult it may initially be, with a stranger; or with a new lover. To the gentle nature of my motherhood. To the esteem of knowing that I have found, pursued and succeeded in my calling. Or, at least, that I’ve given it all — my best.

Yes! That’s it! That I have given it my all — my very best. And that I have loved, always and selflessly.

Last night, I rummaged for a bit longer, found another dream I hadn’t examined in while, dusted it off with my breath and lifted it above my pillow. Lazily, the teardrops of amethyst-purple captured the light with their prisms, divided it and bounced it back at me. It made me calm, with possibility.

“Sitting around a bonfire with gypsy bards,” I sent off another message to my interviewer. “Then, learning to ride their horses, at sunrise.”

It would be like a magnanimous homecoming, and I swore I could smell the morning dew as I would ride through the fields of another place with its exotic promises, in laughing company of my people.

“What about your sexual fantasies?” the voice on the other end of town cut through the city’s diameter with an instantaneous message.

Oh. I wasn’t even thinking about that. Certainly, there would be love in every one of these adventures. There would have to be! Because I had always loved — and selflessly! And I had assumed that to my interviewer, my vision was just as clear.

Still, I opened another compartment of my dreams’ jewelry box and looked inside. I haven’t rummaged through this one in a while. The precious stones caught the light and sparkled lazily. Which one? Which one?

“Oh, my!” I sent off another message across town. “I don’t even know where to start.”

It used to be a better hobby of mine, in youth. With every new love looking over my shoulder, I would visit this increasing collection of my fantasies, dust them off with my breath and twirl them, above us and in between.

“How about this one?” I would look at my beloved’s face through the polished surface of a giant garnet or a convoluted insides of an amber. His face would illuminate with the colors of passion and hunger.

“Yes! I’d like to try that!” he’d say.

And so: We would.

And it would be so liberating to share a dream, to discover each other through the intimacy of our secret desires. Revealing my fantasies would arouse me with trepidations, especially if their exploration unveiled the braver sides of me. If (or when) my lovers reluctantly reveled their own secrets, I would be open-minded and humbled. And I would honor them, with the same preciousness my lovers had shown me.

Because I had loved, always — and selflessly! And I had always given it my all — my very best!

At the end of every affair, the secret would remain safe with me. I wouldn’t throw it across the room in an argument with the departing. I wouldn’t flaunt it in front of the lovers that followed. Instead, I would lock it up, in a compartment with my own fantasies; and I would unlock them only when missing that old love, or when seeking inspiration, with a new one.

Last night, I stared at the lifted cover and the pile of stones full of stories. But in that pile of stories, I seemed unable to find what I was looking for.

“I think they’ve changed,” I confided in my witness. It surprised me that in a box full of treasures, there was no angle or a cut, no shade, no sparkle, no formerly adored setting that taunted me with a desire to explore it: to lift it up against the nightlight and let it lullaby me to sleep shortly before the other kind of dreams found its way.

“Maybe, I’m not ready yet,” I thought to myself.

But that didn’t sound true at all.

“I think — I have changed,” I confessed to my interviewer.

My witness beheld:

“How?”

“I think, my only fantasy now — is the goodness of my men.”

The confession echoed with so much truth and self-awareness, I immediately locked down the lid to my secrets. This was something new, something clear — something very precious. Because I have loved, always — and selflessly…

Because I have always given it my all — my very best! — I was finally willing to ask for it, in return. I was ready for my goodness to come back to me, after being reflected through the prisms of my lovers’ decency.

My main fantasy was found in a new desire to be partnered with someone worthy of my goodness — someone good, on his own terms.

Last night, the other kind of dreams would take over shortly. But this time around, there would be no nightmares at all.

She sat on her futon, bare-breasted, with her strong brown legs stretched out before my face; and they clasped the edge of the antique coffee table with her kitty-cat paws — each nail perfectly polished with the color of the Dead Sea; and she read to me, something about angels.

Where the fuck did she come from?

I knew the details, of course; the original coordinates. Something about a disheveled family. Occasionally, she, no longer impressed with herself, would mention the routes she’d taken — “Been there,” — the detours dictated by the whims of her heart.

She would learn to never follow the lead of a man — only of her dreams.

“At least, those — are worth the heartbreak.”

But even with all those words in between us — the words which she did not take seriously because she was no longer impressed, with herself — I could NOT have known the many distances she had gone, in order to arrive.

But where the fuck did she come from?

Never before had I seen a girl who could sit in her brown skin so calmly, wearing nothing but shivers.

Which would make me get up, close the window, fetch her a blanket.

“I’m fine,” she’d wave it off, of course. For she had gone some very long distances, and she would learn to never follow the lead of a man.

And it surprised me that she could be so mellow while stripped, wearing nothing but shivers over her skin. Most women would freak out with sudden timidness and cover-up their glorious breasts with silly arm gestures. The way their breasts would spill out over their forearms or in between their fingers would still be enough to make me want to conquer my fears, in their name: To make me want to be a man.

She, however, was beyond getting in her own way. For she gone some long distances — in order to arrive.

“It’s bad enough,” she’d joke, “that I’ve got this brain of mine!”

She was always in on the joke of herself.

But really: What the fuck did she come from? And how in the world — was she happening?!

With an erect spine of a disciplined dancer, she had been sitting up, watching me get dressed. I wondered: Would she write me into her poetry in the morning? Would I make it into her stories? (Dear god! I always get in my own way!)

On top of her knees that were fuzzy with shivers, she was holding an open book of poetry. I had just picked it up for her, from a bookstore where she was always finding something to read, about angels. By now, we had shared many books — and plenty of poetry. And we would share even more had it not been for one annoying habit of hers: of always reading the very first and the very last sentence before committing to the rest of the text.

“It’s the perfect test — of everything,” she’d always joke. So impatient — but always in on the joke of herself.

I’d get irritated, at first: “I don’t ever want to know the ending!”

But she would already be ahead of me, with her charm and that angelic face.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” I said to her last night, while she sat comfortably in her brown skin. I wanted to think of myself as poignant, or ironic at least. I reached out to move her hair out of the way.

Her hair! I had never seen it this long before. She would normally lose her patience and chop it off, coming back over the threshold of my house while looking like some French actress, with an angelic face. And it would fling above me, and it would sway, in passion — that glorious wing of hers! — and I would forget to say a prayer to my memory:

Please, please, please hold on to her! Just this way: Riding above me, long beyond my comprehension. Taunting with her riddles and poetry, never meant to be captured. Always: Above!

But instead, I would trip out: There would be so much of her! So much to remember. And I would try to say something poignant, or ironic, at least. And I would ruin it, of course. (By god! I always get in the my own way!)

Her hair! Last night, it was heavy with sweat and the grime of the city. I could smell other beings on her, because they would always want a piece of that compassion. They were entitled to it — that wretched lot of conflicted parasites! — and they would pull her down, down, down with them, by that very same mane of hers.

To keep it out of her face, she would yank her hair back into a bun — with an erect spine and a confident hand of a disciplined dancer. Or, she would flip it, side to side, as she did last night; and it would stream down — that glorious wing of hers! — and in its waves and long centimeters, I could see the distances she had gone.

But: Where?! Where the fuck did she come from? And how in the world was she happening — to me?!

I didn’t know. I couldn’t have known the distances she had gone — in order to arrive. I only knew the privilege of her time and poetry; and instead of getting in the way of myself, this time around, I would let her read to me, about angels.

“and she says

when I defame her

dream:

you are trying to

pull me down

by the wings.”

I shall not do that, not this time, with trying so hard to be poignant, or ironic, at least; with trying so hard — to matter.

Last night, I was told that I no longer rant on this here rant-blog of mine.

Yep. A devoted reader who has been with me from week one of my creative trip (or tripping) has admitted the following: Were he to join my readership now, he would view me very differently from the hot-tempered, opinionated, loud-mouthed, pain-in-the-ass, pro-woman woman that began doing her rant-blogging two-thirds of the year ago.

“You sound like a writer now,” he said, lingered a bit and added: “But I would still want to ask you out though. Maybe even more so!”

Mmm-kay.

“You used to sound so angry, almost bitter,” another one granted his opinion, the other day. And then, he did actually ask me out.

True that: What started this project originally was my decade-long participation in gender wars (and I’m not really sure mine was winning). But having never published on the topic of dating before, I had a lot to unload.

Now: I’ve been writing — for years! I’m talking as soon as I could make sense of the Russian alphabet (which is NOT an easy task). Later on, after attempting to master the English alphabet (a slightly easier task), I would begin writing for cash. It was mostly criticism, at the time; but with the exception of my editorial bits for the college newspaper, I rarely indulged myself in publishing my rants. And as far as relationships went, all that stuff was being kept secret in my journals. (Speaking off: Where the hell are the ones from high school? Oh, boy!)

Before embarking on this year’s project of blogging, as a devout nerd that I am — I first did research. A shit load of it! For hours, I would sit in front of my aged computer and measure myself against the blogosphere full of other opinionated — talented or just loud-mouthed, or both — writers. Could I really do this? At the time, I was at the beginning of a new relationship, so I thought what better way to introduce my inner workings of a nerd to my partner. In a way, I was flaunting the side of me I was no longer willing to tame: I’m a writer. Deal with it!

And from the shit load of my research, two particular pieces of advice got branded into my nerdy brain:

One: You must publish on a regular basis. Your readers expect it.

And,

Two: Make sure it’s authentic — to you.

It made sense. The entire purpose of my public coming-out as a writer was to seek my readership. Before entertaining my entering the blogosphere, that readership was a mere daydream of mine: It would have to happen in an old-fashioned way, after years and years of working on my manuscript — and then a few more years of trying to sell and finally publish that thing. A career of a blogger, however, promised to give me a shortcut: The process of publishing seemed instantaneous.

However, back in those days, even I could not have predicted that there was nothing instantaneous about it: I don’t know about the other talented or loud-mouthed colleagues of mine, but each day, it takes anywhere between four to five hours to write, continuously edit, post, repost — edit, again! — and promote the damn thing. It’s a shit load of work!

But then again, I knew that dedication would not be scarce in me. As for the authenticity, I had to make sure that the topic to which I devoted these four to five hours a day would be exciting enough to ignite my passion. And because I generally don’t half-ass anything in life — neither in art, nor in relationships — I knew I would have to write about it every day. Because that’s why I was entertaining entering the blogosphere in the first place, right: for the instantaneous readership?

What topic could be more exciting than love, I thought. And even then, I knew that by love I meant a state of my soul — not a tedious or confusing chase of the opposite gender while fighting these frustrating gender wars, in which I myself was definitely NOT winning. At first, I would start writing about dating and would hope that all of the other subjects of my love would follow. (They did.)

The very first story I instantaneously published was a bit inspired by my dating experience as one man’s rebound. Some of it was fictionalized (um, about ten percent of it); and the rest — was pathos, which was true to the rebound nature of that relationship. And right off the bat, I wasn’t mellow in my writing. No: I was hot-tempered and loud-mouthed. Having written the piece years ago in my journal, I began amending it for my readership (i.e. molding it into art). But even then, months before I would finally publish it, I began to be aware that the driving force of my writing was not just love — as a permanent state of my soul — but compassion.

Because in actuality, what made me a writer in the first place was my life-long fandom of the human race. That’s what all those tomes and tomes of journaling had been about. And long before I would become a writer — and even longer before I would become a blogger — I was a devout reader: A nerd. I studied humanity, devoured tales of its nature. And in those tales, I always managed to find some hope, and plenty of love.

Two-thirds of the year later, the style of my writing has indeed changed. I no longer rant on the topics of dating, and I especially no longer attempt to write about relationship advice. Look: I am not an expert on that. I’m just a toy soldier in this silly, frustrating fight between two camps of lovers. But what I do have some expertise in — is living a life of compassion: A life driven by a loving spirit.

And speaking of love (for the sake of my instantaneous readership still interested in asking me out): Yes, I am a single woman. I am a hot-tempered, opinionated, loud-mouthed pain-in-ass; disciplined, hard-working writer whose greatest subject — is love. Neither in my private nor public life do I disguise it: I’m an artist. Deal with it!

And even though I anticipate that with this year’s coming-out as a writer, I had made my dating life even more complicated and frustrating, the actual loving — has gotten easier. After all, I practice it every day, in my writing. The art has gotten easier as well; and there is nothing I would rather do, on a daily basis, than to write four to five hours — in pursuit of my DAILY, instantaneous readership.

What will you be like, the future papa of my child? Will you be tall, but not necessarily dark? Or will you be just competent, quietly but certainly, in the way all good men — with nothing to prove — are?

Yes, I’m pretty sure, you’ll be tall.

“What are you chirping about over there?” my own — tall — father chuckled on the phone last night, “My little sparrow…”

He hadn’t seen me grow up. To him, I am still a child treading on the edge of her womanhood with the same gentle balance and vulnerability as if I were walking along a curb: one foot in front of the other, thrilled and focused, not certain about the destination but quite alright with that uncertainty.

He used to follow me whenever I chose that activity on our walks. Hanging just a few steps back, as if giving me enough room for my budding self-esteem and competence, he, while smoking his cigarette, would be equally as focused at putting one foot in front of the other, upon his own flat ground. And according to him, puddles — were always the height of my thrill.

Besides, with me — it was useless to object. He knew that. It was his own trait: If I got an idea into my little stubborn head, you could bet your life I’d follow through. So, he’d rest, while smoking his cigarette on a bench or leaning against a mossy boulder; or on that same curb marked up with my tiny footsteps. And yes, most likely, I would get my feet wet; and I’d look back at him with a frown:

“Alright, let’s hear it!”

But all that would be given back to me was a grin that my father would be trying so very hard to suppress.

And, the future papa of my child: Will you be of a quiet temperament, leaving all the chaotic emotions up to me; hanging back most of the time, as if giving me enough room for my sturdy self-esteem, but then always knowing when to step up to the plate — just because you will be taller — most certainly, taller! — stronger than me? Just because you will be — my man?

True to my stubborn passion, half way through my teens, I decided to leave for a different continent. That time, it was no longer a matter of exploration (although when wasn’t it, with me?) but a matter of a vague hope for better choices in my youth.

My father knew that: The country of my birth was about to go under, and there would be no more gentle balancing for any of us, but a complete anarchy. Yet, never in that chaos, would I see my father lose his composure. Quietly, he’d take in one merciless situation after another, light up a cigarette and hang back while waiting for the best resolution to become clear. And then, he’d step up to the plate and follow through, true to his quiet, stubborn, competent temperament. My father: The first tall man I’d fallen in love with.

So, when I delivered to him the news of my scholarship for a study abroad (something he’d never even heard of, in his lifetime), quietly, he smoked, hung back and took in the information. Surely, there had to be a million questions chaotically arising in his head: questions related to the unpredictable situations my life was certain to present. But that day, he knew better than to get in the way of my decision to leave. Because you could bet your life I’d follow through. He knew that: It was his own trait.

“Don’t tell your mom I agree with this: She’ll kill me!” he told me that day, suppressed a grin; and we began mapping out our next conspiracy.

And, the future papa of my child: Will you be the more lenient of a parent than me, hanging back while letting our kiddo explore his or her own curbs and puddles? (Because you better be certain our child will inherit my tendency for stubborn passions.) Will you quietly follow, hanging just a few steps back, alert enough to catch, pick-up, sweep off, dust off him or her, right on time?

Will you be more courageous to allow for our child’s falls: Because that is the only way one learns? And will you be calmer, leaving all the chaotic emotions up to me, when it is time for our unconditional acceptance of his or her missteps?

It would be one giant puddle I’d select to tread in my womanhood — an entire ocean, to be exact; and then — a whole other one. No matter his own heartbreak, my father chose to hang back. There would be many falls of mine he would be unable to prevent, a million of questions he couldn’t answer; many chaoses he was powerless at solving on my behalf. But no matter my age — and no matter my defeats or victories — I could always dial in on his unconditional ear.

He would listen, hang back — suppress his tears or a grin — then launch into our next conspiracy.

“Don’t tell you mom I know about this,” he always warned me.

Because besides being an exceptional father, he also knew how to be a man: How love a woman with a dangerous habit for stubborn passions. My father would be taller than her, and always much stronger. Yet, still, he would hang back, leaving all the chaotic emotions up to his wife and giving enough room for her budding self-esteem as a woman — and a mom. And when he’d happen to catch us at our feminine chaoses — or silly conspiracies of our gender — he’d suppress a grin and say:

“You’ve gone completely boy crazy!” a former male lover scolded me last night. “Even I would make a better lesbian than you these days!”

Yah. Maybe.

But then, excuse me… ahem: What’s that part called? That part on a man’s lower torso, right at his hip joints? That V of a muscle cave that slides under the wide band of his underwear and down to his crotch, like an arrow commanding for a yield?

Don’t get me wrong: I adore women. Worship them. To me, there is no higher aesthetic — no better divinity to obey — than the curves of the female nude. And the way they are all soft, malleable to the touch, each one entering the space like a foaming wave, with its indistinguishable yet very detailed aromas: It makes you want to grab a pen or a brush, or an empty sheet of music. Suddenly, you wish for talents that just aren’t in your nature. You want to name things about a woman; but so busy is your mind soaking her up, so breathlessly humbled you are when she soaks you — you fear wasting a single minute on letting the mind depart in search of the right words and, god forbid (Shiva forbid!), lose her.

I watched a boy do that to me the other night. LA-LA was still in its San Franciscan mood — something he “did NOT sign-up for!” when he moved here six months ago — but as I shivered in the fog, hiding behind my frizzy hair and wrapping myself in the wide bottom of my gypsy skirt on a very San Franciscan street of my neighborhood, he couldn’t stop talking. Name that tune! Name that perfume! Name it!

“I’ve never seen a purple skirt like this before — this much purple!”

“What exactly is the color of that feather earring peeking through your hair?”

“That’s one unusual jacket!”

The darling boy-child was overwhelmed:

“You are…” — he kept saying, then lingering for the next big adjective he could remember from his undergrad.

But they don’t teach you the swagger of a man back in college: How to approach the unpredictable nature of a woman; how to size her up, then seize her with the exact words she’s been dying to hear since the beginning of her sex. When and how to touch her, how to hold her down without crushing or offending; without letting her slip down and in between your fingers. Where to tap. Which buttons to push. How to make her breathless or wild. How to unleash her humidities, to let her want to soak you. How to make her stay.

So, my dear boy-child struggled, visibly; working overtime to memorize and to decipher — to possibly impress — not even knowing that by the mere choosing of him that night, I already found him enough.

“You are…” — and he searched my face, my collar bone and the modest canyon between my breasts with those dark eyes he’d inherited from the other hemisphere, while unconsciously chewing on his lower lip. (I could make a meal of that thing!)

But while he lingered, I too found myself devouring his youth. The long-sleeved, slate-gray henley shirt with just the two top buttons undone clung to his shapely chest; and all I could do to keep myself from reaching across the table was to rewrap my shivering body in “this much purple” of a skirt. I could see the swelling of his pecs underneath, and I suspected that the tautness and the give of him was a testament to his youth and regiment. He was still in the midst of figuring out his own shape, his style — of coming into his own; but it would take a love affair with a woman — a woman with an experience for pushing his buttons — to learn about how this whole thing he’d inherited worked.

And he stood so tall! (I love that, about men. The way they can hold their ground, with all that body mass; some with a very laid-back grace, others — with an adorable apology for taking-up so much space.) When the boy-child walked me home that night, I measured myself up against him, and while still shivering, took the liberty of figuring out how I could fit into his side, for the first time ever. I looked for my nook — an intimate invasion along the body of a man I have not yet explored. This way? Or maybe, if I put my head here and catch my hand on his back pocket? Or, can I push my hip against his upper thigh and balance in his stride? While I adjusted and nudged; moved, shifted, and held onto, my hand slid along his lower stomach. I rested there, studied it:

Excuse me, but… ahem: What’s this part called? This part — this V — on a man’s lower torso, right at his hip joints? This groove leading to my life-long addiction?

But then again, this is the very first chapter of my life in which such open admiration of his kind has started. I’ve begun to admire men’s shapes, not just conquer them. I’ve started examining their skin, like some curious continents, with histories I no longer flippantly dismiss due to my own anger, or angst, or pride.

“Where is this scar from?”

“This beauty mark, above your lip: How long have you had it?”

Name that tune! Name that scent! Name it!

I find them funny, charming and intense; childlike — wonderful! — with having to give me what my worship of women cannot. Suddenly, in the company of men, I’ve begun to rest. Because for the very first time, they are — enough: Good enough and then some. They are enough, for me — yet so differently magnificent! — especially when they are sufficient, in their own skin.

But, still. Ahem… What IS that part called? That part, on a man’s lower torso, running parallel to his hip joints, but then detouring to heaven? What IS — that V? Name it.